Welcome to the Human Condition

Sometimes life comes at us with such force, surprise and ruthlessness, it stuns us. I don’t have any more answers than you do but I do have it whacking me in the face or elsewhere, every day of my life. I know if you’re reading this, you do, also.

This week has been a good example of that as so much is going on in our little world as well as the impending danger for millions of Americans facing a hurricane in the east. Let me use yesterday as an example. Jim, my dear man, who had just returned from a trip to California on family business had missed his flight because the hotel did not give him the wake-up call he had requested. While he was in CA he went to visit an old friend many miles from where he was staying to discover that old friend’s wife had been found dead that morning in their bathroom. She was recovering from surgery. Thankfully Jim was there for the rest of the day and evening for his old friend and his sons as they arrived on various flights from all over the country.

Then yesterday he had to be back in Portland, 75 miles from here, at 7:30 in the morning to see the dermatologist. Two more biopsies were taken. Jim thinks they’re trying to do him in, one “scoop” at a time. I assured him as any good smart-ass wife would that it would take a lot of scooping. Meanwhile, as he was being prodded and biopsied, I was awakened by a backhoe, shoveling and scraping weeds, Oregon blackberry bushes and a tree stump or two in a large empty lot across the street. Then a large bucket/ladder truck arrived in all its glory to park on and crush the sidewalk across the street, on the other side of us, in preparation to remove a once huge beautiful tree that had split in our fierce windstorms of 2007. Of course, it was accompanied by a shredder of indescribable volume. You know those sounds that make your teeth rattle?

I was waiting for the dear man who works on our computers to come by and help me with Jim’s computer while my new one is being prepared for me because I’m too ignorant to do it myself. (I must share with all of you the fact I didn’t know what to call the backhoe and had to call my daughter who I knew would know because of her 7 year-old son. I wanted to call it a steam shovel but felt certain that wasn’t correct any longer. When she said backhoe I started laughing and said, “Wow, that would be such a great code name for me, wouldn’t it?” But I digress.)

I had to return some movies to the video store and because we get few dry days around here, all of the streets are being worked on. There were huge signs in front of our house I had to manipulate around and as another car came up the hill toward me, I over-corrected and clipped one of the neighbor’s huge trash cans which was out in the street for trash pick-up and tore the side mirror off my car, glass flying everywhere. I drove around the block to pick up my mirror pieces and to scoop up as many fragments as possible. All of this happened and it wasn’t even noon yet.

Since it was so wonderful outside I finally got to wash some windows, and perform a few other chores that needed doing. As all of you know, we have to more or less strike while the “iron is hot” when your body is compromised by pain and illness. Yesterday I struck and later last night it struck me back. There is always a price to pay but I think that’s life.

Please allow me to share one of my poems with all of you today because it seems appropriate for this subject.

The Human Condition

We become fatigued by life
slowly, one day at a time.
Successes, failures
love found, love lost.

This shell and vehicle
once a friend,
now becomes less cordial.

You feel the same
within
yet your body and the mirror
tell a different tale.

You grow weary of
decisions
experiences and
disappointments.

Life’s joys
grow more profound
And you become more
of what you truly are.

Tones become deeper
Resonance becomes fuller
Colors become richer.

You gradually become
a sum of all.

Each experience,
each relationship,
each sunrise and sunset
equal the who of you.

Each path you’ve taken
has led to some destination.

One day you begin to wonder.
What did I accomplish?
What did I achieve?
Was my stack the highest?
Does it matter?

Regrets become reflections.
The past is only a moment in time.

You realize learning is the food of life
and loving is the sunshine.

Each day you move forward
fed by learning,
spurred on by loving
you move toward the sunshine.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Falkner-Wood

Sue Falkner-Wood is a retired registered nurse living in Astoria, Ore., with her husband, who is also an R.N. Sue left nursing in 1990 due to chronic pain and other symptoms related to what was eventually...read more